The Global Medical Training UT chapter provided basic healthcare to the Dominican Republic 🇩🇴 this winter break. What starts here, heals the world. In one week, I gained a new family who welcomed me into their arms. It was a privilege to work alongside pre-health students, doctors, translators, and coordinators. We all cared and wore our heart on our sleeves.
The Mission!
For four days, 27 University of a Texas students, including 5 doctors and 6 translators worked together to treat over 900 patients. Each clinic day was routine. Before heading off to the outskirts of La Romana, we waited for our friends and prayed as a group. Then on the bus, we mentally prepared ourselves by reviewing our notes but mainly socialized with friends.
On arriving to our clinic sites, what I saw seemed straight out of a movie. But it was reality. In these villages, I saw kids playing in ditches, adults standing in their doorway of houses no bigger than my classrooms at UT, and a flock of children and adults eager to be seen at the clinic. After unloading the trailer of medical supplies and medicine, we started. In groups of two or three other students and a translator, I diagnosed patients with the SOAP formula (Subject-Objective-Assessment-Plan which we learned in our workshops prior to the trip) under the supervision of doctors. And when I could, I tried to practice my Spanish which I was super bad at! The people of DR were nice and gracious folks. They genuinely smiled at times when answering their questions. In the midst of heat and probably thirst, they patiently waited for their medicine. “Cuanta agua bebes cada dia?” How much water do you drink? I would ask. “Mucho,” A lot, they would reply. “Pero…cuantos?” But how much? I implored. Then they would just show me with their fingers, “this much”. When they mean a lot, they mean only a cup or pint. “Debes ocho vasos de agua cada dia.” You must drink 8 cups of water a day. That was pretty much all I knew to say. But through our translator, we educated each patient about clean water intake and their reasons for headache (probably dehydration), dyspepsia or gastritis (parasites in water), fever, cold, and other common ailments. In many other cases, we received patients with STDs, pregnant teenage girls, men with severe back pain, and families contracted with the same contagious disease. Often times, they wouldn’t know that they have something wrong with them, so we had to check thoroughly and ask the right kind of open-ended questions for a good diagnosis. With each patient I visited, I made sure to make eye contact, be courteous, and simply care for them, for this may be their only medical visit for the year.
The best part of the clinic days were being able to play with children!
In the film mindset, from having a vision of what story to tell to making tough decisions on the field, I learned so much. Usually, as the person behind the camera, I tend to stand away and film my subject. But this trip has made me realize that the very simple notion of smiling and moving closer to subjects made me involved. As a result, I cared more about what I was filming or photographing. Also, my days at the clinic taught me to be wary and ethical about filming. Before pressing record, I had to analyze the situation in front and around me if it was okay to film. Then, if it felt right, I approached a person and ask, “Hola, perismo, puedo tomar su photo?” (Hi, excuse me, can I take your photo?) This initiation is what I truly needed practice on, because in the future, my career may require me to act and make swift, calculated decisions on the spot. Each night, I uploaded dailies to a Google Drive for the GMT officers at UT to see. And throughout my trip, I updated our SnapChat followers on how we were doing. (Live @gmtatut). After my trip, I had to pleasure of rewatching the moments I captured in post-production while editing. I spent 3 full days editing my footage and another day for revision. The video was screened to the first general GMT meeting of the semester on January 30th. It was watched with my new friends and we cried! I learned later that someone else is using my video as a feature and thumbnail for their Gofundme page! I made sure at the end of the video to have a call-to-action, because my purpose was to make a video that encouraged social change. I inserted a donation link to our GMT website to stock our pharmacies abroad. (See video under Films or this click here: GMT DR Winter 2019 Official Video)
Clinics were exhausting and hot, but at the end of the day, I climbed back on to the bus feeling grateful. I got to make friends and connected with so many people. It was really rewarding. It gave me perspective on how fortunate I really am and what else needs to be done in terms of the lack of global health care, education, sanitation, and clean water in third world countries. I remember thinking one evening on the bus back to our hotel—“If you’re tired at the end of the day, it was a successful day.” We passed through fields of sugarcane everyday to our clinics—a sight I will never forget. It was only four days that I went out to clinic sites, but I wish I were there to serve, heal people, make new and meet up with friends, and see the fields of sugarcane again. This experience taught me to be present in the moment doing what I love most which is creating and capturing raw emotions of humans. Here’s to many more moments that I will be able to say, “Estoy aquí, I am here. Ahora, what can I do to help?”
